


The Year of Jubilee

by vain_glorious



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mind Control, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 08:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vain_glorious/pseuds/vain_glorious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from Season 2.03 "Runner"; Ronon never joined Atlantis, but a few years later he has the chance to repay his debt to Sheppard. Which he does. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_\(Biblical\)) page on title origin.

“The IOA feels he’s too much of a liability and an unknown,” the woman said. She was trying to whisper, but Ronon Dex could hear her words across the mess hall. Her voice didn’t sound particularly upset about the decision. She didn’t sound pleased, either, though, more like she had no stake in it. He didn’t know how she felt about him, didn’t know if it mattered.

“Liability to who?” Sheppard asked, and he did sound upset. Maybe more about being told what to do, though. Ronon didn’t quite understand the command structure here, but Sheppard evidently wasn’t at the top.  The woman was apparently in charge, but she wasn’t in the military and there were people some place else who could tell her what to do. It was weird.

A group of people swept into the mess hall then, their voices washing over the room and drowning out the conversation. Ronon stopped listening, anyway. It didn’t matter. He focused on his food and ate faster.  
Shortly, he heard footsteps and knew before he looked up that Sheppard was standing beside the table. The man’s face was resigned.

“Hey,” Sheppard said.

“Hey,” said Ronon, still eating. “I think I should go soon.”

Sheppard blinked for a second, then his head tilted slightly. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

Ronon left the city of the Ancestors four days later. He never even learned its name. It would have been sooner, but the doctor that had removed the Wraith tracker from his back insisted he stay long enough that the medical staff was confident that the incision wasn’t infected. Ronon didn’t think that was the real reason. The wound was deep and tender and it still stung if he moved his arms too quickly, but it was already healing. There was no bite of an unclean cut.

He would have been suspicious, but he didn’t think they were lying to him so much as to the commander woman. They felt sorry for him, thought they were helping him by keeping him here. Ronon thought the city was strange. Too clean and too shiny, and he was leaving so it didn’t matter. He didn’t like being the object of pity and he didn’t like being followed around by guards all the time.

Ronon accepted the supplies and food they wanted to give him, though. He wasn’t stupid and their food was okay.

The people were okay, too, he guessed. It didn’t really matter. The woman in charge felt guilty and embarrassed about needing Ronon to leave, which was fine. She and most everyone who knew about the destruction of Sateda looked at him with sad, sympathetic smiles, which was less fine. Ronon didn’t need that and if he’d been staying any longer he’d have told them so. Sheppard didn’t show him those faces, seemed to understand it wasn’t something that needed talking about. Teyla tried to discuss it with him, but backed off immediately when she realized his disinterest. She offered condolences and let it be.

The loud non-military man who’d been on the planet with them gave Ronon a radio. It communicated somehow with the Ring of the Ancestors in the city, so he could use it to talk to them if he wanted.

“It won’t open the shield,” McKay said about fifteen times. “So don’t go through the ‘Gate or you’ll get squished like a bug. We’re not giving you the keys, just a doorbell.”

Ronon didn’t really understand, but he didn’t have any reason to talk to these people after he left. He didn’t think they’d be around long; the Wraith would learn they were using Ancestor technology and cull them.

“So long,” Sheppard said, standing with Ronon before the Ring. “Kick some Wraith ass. Give us a call if you need some help.”

Ronon wouldn’t need it. These people had already helped him too much. He had done nothing in return, hadn’t even captured the crazy man on the planet. He thought about warning them about the Wraith, about what they did to people who could really fight back. But they had seen Sateda, too.

Teyla said goodbye in the manner of her people, pressing her forehead to his. It was warm and felt good. Ronon was slow to pull away, unaccustomed to touching someone like this in so long. He looked at her and was glad he was going, because the Wraith would take her, too, but he wouldn’t know about it when they did.

The woman in charge wished him luck, then gave him an awkward wave and looked as flustered as she usually did around him. Ronon ignored it and walked through the Ring without looking back. He had had them dial Sateda, again, because he had no where else to go.

Ronon walked into bright daylight, total silence, and air that smelled like death.

~

The next time Ronon saw any of those people was over two years later. He hadn’t forgotten them; it was impossible to forget to whom he owed every day of stillness. He’d learned more about them, heard stories from peoples who traded with the city. It was surprising – in a nice way – that they hadn’t yet been culled. Ronon still had the radio they’d given him; he’d never used it.

He saw them again on Aracha. It was a big city on a little planet and it sort of reminded him of Sateda. But these buildings were standing tall and intact, the people still living. He liked the buildings more. The Arachans were not Satedan, and he did not like them. They built beautiful rockets, though, tiny little ones that could hit a Wraith dart and detonate it faster than anything else. Ronon came to Aracha every few months to stock up. He dealt with the same salesman each time and was gone by the evening.  It was strange and unsettling to be around people, still. He preferred the silence of Sateda, empty except for ghosts.

His routine changed the day he saw a large crowd gathered in the marketplace, near his arms dealer’s stall. Out of necessity more than interest, Ronon had to pick his way through the hot mass of people to reach the man’s office. He caught site of the attraction: a man in a black military uniform shackled in place on a raised platform. Ronon had vaguely been aware of slavery on this planet; the arms dealer used thin, unhappy looking men to carry the heavy artillery boxes to the Ring of the Ancestors. But he had never seen an auction and it made a bitter taste coat the back of his throat.

It took a few seconds, but Ronon recognized the uniform. It was the one worn by the military of the city of the Ancestors. He wondered how the man had been captured by the Aracha, who he didn’t know to be aggressive against anyone but the Wraith or even particularly interested in off-world events. Ronon cast an eye around, looking for the man’s teammates. The other slaves lined up on the rear of the platform were not in the same uniform.

He listened to the auctioneer speaking to the crowd. The man was being advertised as healthy and strong, and the minimum price was equivalent to about 10 cases of rockets. Ronon stuck his hand into his purse of Arachan currency; he had enough for 80 cases. If the man’s price went any higher than that, he wouldn’t be able to afford him.

Forty minutes later, Ronon owned a human being. It had taken his entire purse and a particularly threatening staring match with an annoyingly persistent Arachan man. The guy looked like an easy opponent though, and Ronon figured if he didn’t win, he could just kill the guy and steal the slave without much problem.

It didn’t come to that, though, since the guy gave up and started acting like he’d never made eye contact with Ronon. The auction runners took Ronon to an office inside the marketplace building. The slave was there, waiting. Up close, he looked to be in bad shape. His face was covered in dirt and dried blood, and he was swaying in place. In addition to the shackles, there was something metal clamped to the back of his neck. It was spiny and twisted, like a metallic insect attached to a vein.

Ronon turned over the asking price and signed the paperwork presented to him. The final step was creepy and if Ronon hadn’t seen the armed guards outside the doorway, he would have balked. The Arachans wanted to seal the deal with a blood oath, and a round little man showed up with a dagger to take it from him. He let them slice his forearm open and collect a cup full of it. The wound stung and the second the cup was full, Ronon shoved the man away so hard he nearly bounced off the far wall.

This pissed off the Arachans and someone called in the guards. It got a little loud and angry, but eventually one of the employees decided he didn’t want the building demolished over a business transaction that was already complete. Ronon was actually a little annoyed, because beating up slavers was appealing.

Instead, he got handed the chain-link leash to the bound man’s shackles and was firmly asked to leave.

“Unchain him,” Ronon said.

“He’s not trained yet,” warned the Arachan slaver.

“Take ‘em off,” Ronon said. “And the thing on his neck.”

“I cannot remove that,” the same guy said, and flinched when Ronon glared at him.

The slave lost consciousness when the shackles came off. Ronon wasn’t sure why; he didn’t seem aware of the proceedings and it was possible they’d drugged him some more as they released him. He ended up carrying the slave back through the Ring, a complete dead weight in his arms.

Ronon brought the guy home and cleaned him up, first. He’d had the suspicion and it was confirmed when he washed the blood and dirt off his face. His new slave was the very same man who he’d captured all those years ago. Ronon couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but it was conveniently printed on a metal tag around his neck.

Sheppard was in bad shape. He had a scalp injury, the source of the blood coating his face. Ronon cleaned and bandaged the cut. It didn’t look too serious. Most likely one of the Arachans had clubbed him with something. But Sheppard wasn’t waking up. There was also a small, uncleaned wound on his arm – ripe for infection. After washing and bandaging that one, too, Ronon tucked him into bed and went to find the radio he’d been given by the man’s people.

When he came back, Sheppard had managed to stagger out of bed, vomit on the ground, and sprawl himself on the floor in the doorway. He might have been pretending to be unconscious, but he wasn’t able to do much else.

Ronon leaned over him. “Hey,” he said.

Sheppard blinked up, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

“Remember me?” Ronon asked.

After a few seconds, Sheppard’s shoulder moved in an effort to shrug. “Lemme go,” he said, slurring badly. He sounded kind of hopeful.

Ronon waved the radio at him. “Calling your people.”

Sheppard tried to focus on the object. Then he squeezed his eyes shut like looking that hard had hurt. He didn’t say anything.

“Right,” Ronon said. He picked Sheppard up off the floor and propped him back into bed.

Calling the City of the Ancestors was easier than Ronon expected. He didn’t know how it worked, but the device connected through the Ring and soon he heard a tinny voice broadcasting out of the speaker.

“Identify yourself,” said a very wary sounding female voice.

“Ronon Dex,” he said. “I have one of your people.”

There was a short pause and when the woman spoke again she was confused and upset. “Excuse me?”

“I have one of your people,” Ronon said again. “Sheppard.”

There was a longer pause, now. He imagined there was some kind of frantic conversation going on at the other end.

“Okay,” she said. “What do want for him?”

“Want you to come and get him,” Ronon said. “He’s sick. Injured.”

“You want nothing in exchange?” The woman checked. Her voice was full of disbelief.

Ronon wouldn’t have minded a couple of those salty envelopes of food, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

“No,” he said. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yes.”

Ronon went back to the house to get Sheppard. The man fought him every step of the way to the Ring, weakly and without any real strategy. Ronon folded his arms across the man’s torso and pinned his hands down, forcing him to march forward with his arms trapped against his chest. Sheppard was too messed up to figure out how to get free, but he did manage to bend down and get his teeth around Ronon’s wrist. Sheppard continued to bite him all the way to the Ring.

There was a military team already there. Four of them, and what looked like two medics with a gurney standing behind. Immediately, four guns were leveled at Ronon.

“Release him!” One of the soldiers yelled.

Ronon looked at them. He shrugged and began disentangling himself from Sheppard, who neither helped nor stopped biting him. The moment he was unsupported, Sheppard took two lurching steps forward and crashed to the dirt in front of the Ring.

“What’s on his neck?” asked one of the soldiers.

The two medics immediately went to Sheppard’s side, hands skimming over him as they talked to each other in urgent tones.

“What’d you do to him?” demanded the first soldier, who may have been in charge.

“Nothing.” Ronon was careful to make no sudden movements, while allowing his arm to drift towards his holster. “Found him like this.”

The two medics rolled Sheppard on to their gurney and strapped him down. The soldiers kept their weapons trained on Ronon, until the medics picked up the gurney and went through the Ring, and then the soldiers backed through as well. The horizon vanished, and Ronon was alone again.

~

The soldiers came back the very next day. Ronon didn’t go out to meet them. Instead he found a high tower from which to watch them as they searched for him. It was strange to see people moving in the Satedan streets, even just the four men. They didn’t know the city like he did, and kept wandering down dead end streets that were blocked by debris. He wondered what they thought of wreckage that was left of his home, decided it would probably make him angry.

He didn’t know why they were back. It occurred to him that maybe Sheppard had died and they blamed him. The man hadn’t seemed too badly off, but Ronon wasn’t a doctor.

Even if they didn’t know the city, the soldiers were increasingly moving towards Ronon’s position. It might have simply been logical – the standing structures were a nicer and safer place to hide than the craters in parts of the city. More likely they had a means of tracking him.

Ronon moved, then, finding his way through the ruins to the most damaged part of the city. The Wraith had obliterated the military installations. It was a mass of debris and Ronon could only travel as easily as he did because he knew it well. The soldiers would find it impossible and probably dangerous.

It didn’t take long. He heard the detonation of a scatter grenade, followed by silence. There were loose armaments everywhere, like unintentional landmines. Ronon used a pair of binoculars to watch the soldiers. Two of them were now supporting a third, while a fourth took point as they returned to the Ring.

The following day, another person came to Sateda. Ronon watched from his hiding place, back in the tallest remaining tower. At that distance he could see only the uniform of the city of the Ancestors. The soldier didn’t go looking for him, though. The figure stayed near the Ring, eventually taking a seat at its base.

Ronon tried to wait the soldier out. But hours passed and the figure did not move from a sitting position, staying utterly still. And finally, he was curious, so Ronon left the tower and walked to the Ring. He didn’t bother to be covert; he hadn’t seen anyone else come through it and one person wasn’t any kind of trap.

When he got close enough, Ronon recognized the person waiting by the Ring. She was the woman he’d encountered when he met Sheppard the first time. He didn’t let the hesitation show in his step, since she was now watching his approach. It would have been better if he could remember her name, but he only had her pretty red hair and strong face stuck in his memory.

“Hey,” he said, walking up towards the circle.

The woman stayed seated until he stopped a few steps from her “Hello,” she said, and began to rise. Her movements were graceful and controlled as she drew herself to her feet. She wasn’t armed, or if she was the weapons were concealed. Despite this, he recognized the readiness of her posture. She wasn’t afraid of him but she was primed to fight. “I am Teyla Emmagan,” the woman said.

“I know,” he said, even though he hadn’t. “Did Sheppard die?”

“No,” she said, and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. She dropped her hands to her waist and intertwined her fingers. “But he is very ill.”

“I didn’t hurt him,” Ronon said, holding himself at his full height. It sounded like an accusation.

“I did not think you did,” Teyla said. It was kind of strange, since she had no basis for that judgment.  At their only previous meeting, he had taken her and Sheppard hostage. “Our doctors would like to speak to you about what happened to him.” She looked back at the Ring.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Would you accompany me?”

Ronon looked at her hair glinting copper in the sun. “Okay,” he said.

~

The city of the Ancestors was much like Ronon remembered. Enormous and artificial, and filled with human lives that didn’t leave any kind of mark within it. He still found it strange and unsettling, too crowded and yet too empty.

The city reacted to him in much the same way, too. Four guards were immediately assigned to follow him everywhere, and the citizens peered at him in confusion and fear. Ronon was much cleaner than last time, though, stronger and better fed. He thought he looked better now, but he guessed they couldn’t tell.

The leadership had changed. It was a new woman, a blonde with a long braid who didn’t startle as easily as the previous one. She thanked him for coming back with Teyla, but she also sent the guards with him to the infirmary.

“What happened to the other one?” he asked Teyla, as they took a transport to another part of the city.

She understood his question, but didn’t answer immediately. Her mouth went into a small, grim line. “We lost her,” she said. “She is dead.”

“Oh,” Ronon said. He paused for a long time, then knew what to say. “I’m sorry.”

Teyla nodded, but her mouth stayed pursed.

The infirmary was the same and different, too. Ronon tried to disguise the way his body reacted to the place.  The medicinal scent of the rooms triggered memories of the doctors probing the incision in his back, made him tense up and hunch his shoulders. The staff still skittered away from him, but they also paid him much less attention. Instead, they focused on their most important patient.

Sheppard was ensconced in a private room in the rear of the infirmary. Ronon wasn’t told where the man was, just escorted to a room closer to the entrance. He watched the stream of staff and figured it out, somewhat surprised to find himself relieved by proof that Sheppard had, for the moment, survived.

The doctor that came to interrogate Ronon was someone he hadn’t met before. It was a woman, young and moonfaced. She was afraid of him, too, which was getting kind of old. Ronon focused on being very still, trying to show that there was no reason for her to be so twitchy.

It didn’t seem to help. Her questions were also pretty dumb. He told her how he’d found Sheppard, that the man had been totally out of it, and that was all Ronon knew. She mostly wanted to know about the Arachan device implanted in Sheppard’s neck, which Ronon knew nothing about. He told the same story about seven times, since he didn’t have anything else to say. Eventually the doctor rolled her eyes, thanked him distractedly for the help, and walked off.

His guards quickly entered the room, but they didn’t try to take him anywhere. A few minutes later, Teyla followed. She looked sad and serious, disappointed that Ronon had not been able to help.

“He gonna die?” Ronon asked.

Teyla’s eyes widened slightly, her jaw tucking under for a second. It was, Ronon supposed, one of those questions that had some kind of etiquette. He blinked at her, ignoring the flush of embarrassment that flamed in his chest

“No,” she said, after a moment. “But he is unwell.” She tapped the side of her temple with three fingers. “He is not fully with us.”

Ronon nodded. He remembered the man’s disorientation on Sateda. It must have been more than the head injury.

“You can’t fix him?” He asked, casting an eye around the room. It’d been stripped of any Ancestor technology before his arrival, but she understood what he meant.

Again, he’d probably said something rude. She was polite enough to ignore it.

“Thank you for returning with me,” was all she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Is the doctor who –” he reached back towards his neck – “here?”

The sad, tight look returned to Teyla’s face and he knew before she spoke that the man was dead, too.

“I should probably go,” Ronon said, and Teyla nodded.

~

The second time Ronon left the city of the Ancestors, he brought nothing with him. The people paid little attention to him, utterly distracted by Sheppard’s condition. Teyla walked with him back to the Ring, but did not bid him farewell as she had before. Her thoughts were elsewhere, too, and Ronon began to put the place and its people out of his mind before he even stepped through the horizon.

The following week, Ronon had a few trips scheduled across four planets. He didn’t have as many weapons as he’d planned, having spent most of his budget for that month buying Sheppard. He knew he wasn’t owed, but he regretted having to divide the supplies he delivered into even smaller portions. All the same, he showed the defense forces how to use what he had. Most of the arsenal was for targeting Wraith scout ships. Powerful enough to be effective, but small enough not to attract too much attention from the hives.

The defense forces on the various planets each paid through different means. The Sechas fed him well and gave him enough crops to last the next winter. The Lohars exchanged the rockets for smaller ammunitions and one really nice knife. The Rethos paid in money, something which made them happy but never converted well off world. The Orthee tried to give him a woman, having nothing else they could spare. Ronon gave her right back and left without receiving payment.

He returned to Sateda and unloaded the supplies he’d gotten in exchange. It might have been possible to bring the scorched fields back to life, but not with one man. He occasionally saw wildlife in the ruins, but didn’t try to hunt them. It was nice to know that some living creatures other than Ronon still walked here.

Ronon knew something was different the moment he stepped inside the house. Nothing was out of place, but his hackles rose and he drew his gun. He’d taken over a mansion in the Eastern section of the city. The shield had held the longest there, probably because Kel had ordered energy drawn from other parts. Many of the homes here were barely damaged, and the electrical lines and plumbing were still intact. Ronon had tried to live elsewhere, because thinking about why the richest section of the city still stood made him furious. But eventually he gave in and moved there, hooking up a generator and making himself a base camp.

He found the intruder sitting in a child-like sprawl in the doorway of the room Ronon had made his bedroom. It was Sheppard, and the man didn’t even flinch when Ronon’s gun swung to bear on him.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, and gave a huge grin. “I was beginning to think you weren’t here.” He raised one loose, languid arm and made a vague gesture. “Didn’t know where else to find you.”

Ronon holstered his gun. “What are you doing here?”

Sheppard didn’t make any effort to get up, even as Ronon walked up and loomed over him.

There was another meaningless handwave. “I left Atlantis,” Sheppard said. His eyes were large and shiny. “I thought I could hang out here.”

Ronon looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see a really angry retrieval team sneaking up on him in the hallway.

“Not directly,” Sheppard added. “They won’t be able to follow.”

Despite his limp posture and glazed eyes, Sheppard sounded okay. He wasn’t slurring and was making, well, a little bit of sense. Not a lot, but some.

“How long have you been here?” Ronon asked, crouching down as it became clear the man wasn’t going to stand up. He noticed the spindly metal was still attached to Sheppard’s neck, peeking out of the blue patient scrubs he was wearing. Sheppard must have left directly from the infirmary.

“I dunno.” Sheppard shrugged his shoulders. “Couple of days.”

Ronon wasn’t sure, but he thought Sheppard might have been literally lying on the floor waiting for him to come home for that long. Up close, Sheppard was obviously ill. His lips were dry and peeling, his face was flushed.

“What are you doing here?” asked Ronon.

Sheppard was staring at him intently, almost not even blinking. He didn’t break eye contact at all even as he spoke and said, “I’m not really sure.”

Ronon stared back at him, finally rocking back on his heels and standing again. “Get up,” he said, because he didn’t have anything else to say.

Immediately, Sheppard tried to obey. He got his feet under him and put a palm down on the floor to push off of. But his effort to stand was clumsy, and he wobbled before he was halfway up.

“Whoa,” Sheppard said, tilting sideways. He would have crashed back down but Ronon grabbed him by the arm and pulled him upright.

Sheppard had similar trouble walking, as if he was distracted and unable to control his legs. Ronon kept hold of his bicep and had to hook his other arm around the man’s waist, guiding him in a straight path. He couldn’t think of anything else to do so he took Sheppard to the kitchen and put him in a chair.

“Sorry,” Sheppard apologized when Ronon let him go. He put both hands up to his temples. “I got, like, a head rush.”

“You should drink something,” Ronon said.

“Okay,” Sheppard said, eyes still locked on him. It was a strange gaze, unnaturally intense and unmoving from Ronon’s face. Sheppard didn’t speak or look away while Ronon moved around the kitchen and mixed him a combination of juice, water, and salt. It wouldn’t fix everything, but it would help the obvious dehydration.

“Drink this,” Ronon said, setting the large glass on the table in front of Sheppard.

“Okay.” Sheppard lifted it and began to swallow. He didn’t comment on the taste, which Ronon knew to be salty and kind of gross. In fact, Sheppard drank it continuously, gulping the fluid down without pause. He was going to make himself sicker, so Ronon put a hand out and halted the tilting glass.

“Slowly,” he said, unhooking Sheppard’s fingers and setting it back on the table.

Sheppard continued to stare at him. “Okay,” he said. “Sorry.”

He reached for the glass and took a small sip, then looked at Ronon for approval.

“Okay?” he asked.

~

[ ](http://www.statcounter.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

Sheppard did everything Ronon told him to do. That much was obvious, immediately. It went along with the strange, glassy gaze that Sheppard couldn’t focus on anything other than Ronon. It was creepy as hell.

While Sheppard sipped his fluids, Ronon stood behind him and poked curiously at the strange metal claw stuck to the man’s neck. Sheppard obediently tilted his head this direction or that, without saying a word. Ronon accomplished nothing, of course, only confirming that it was attached. It could have extended into the man’s brain for all he knew.

Finally, Ronon went back and sat opposite Sheppard.

“Give me your hand,” Ronon said, an experiment forming in his mind. 

Instantly, Sheppard let go of the glass and thrust his right arm across the table.

“Keep drinking,” Ronon said, and Sheppard’s attention redirected back to his glass.

Ronon drew a small knife from a sheath at his waist. With one hand, he pressed Sheppard’s hand flat against the table and held it lightly by the wrist. He glanced up, but the man was back to taking the tiny sips from his glass. Sheppard was pausing between swallows, each break the same length of time. His lips were moving as if he were counting silently.

Ronon tapped the flat of blade against the back of Sheppard’s hand.  It took a second, but slowly Sheppard took his eyes of the glass and looked across the table. He didn’t react, though, just kind of glanced at the knife then raised his eyes to Ronon’s face. Sheppard didn’t say anything, picked up the glass and took another small sip.

“I’m gonna cut you finger off,” Ronon said, turning the knife so the sharp side of the blade was directly above the third knuckle of Sheppard’s index finger.

Again, it took a second longer than was natural for Sheppard to process the statement. He understood, though, and his face tightened up in horror. But he didn’t try to withdraw his hand. He left his other hand curled around his glass. He didn’t even say anything. His only reaction was the shock on his face. There wasn’t a single moment of resistance.

Ronon dropped the knife blade a fraction, let a small line of crimson break on Sheppard’s skin. The man picked up his glass and took another tiny sip. His arm flinched but otherwise stayed still.

Ronon folded the knife up and put it away.

Relief flooded across Sheppard’s face. He left his arm lying across the table, the tiny bead of blood welling up on his finger.

“Something’s really wrong with you,” Ronon said.

Sheppard looked up from staring into the glass. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

~

It turned out there was one thing Sheppard had done on his days in Sateda before throwing himself on the floor of Ronon’s bedroom to wait. Unfortunately, that one thing had been locating the device Ronon had been given to contact the City of the Ancestors and smashing it into a million pieces.

He’d cleaned up the mess, though. Swept up all the little parts and disposed of them in a trash can, which he obediently showed Ronon when he suspiciously asked the man if he knew where it was.

Ronon glared at the tiny little pieces of crunched circuitry. Then, he glared at Sheppard.

“Why’d you do that?”

“So you couldn’t send me back,” Sheppard answered, immediately. Honesty was probably a part of whatever influence he was under. Sheppard didn’t look like he wanted to tell Ronon. In fact, he kind of looked like he expected to have the shit kicked out of him for doing it even as he confessed. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed to be making a conscious effort not to flinch away.

Ronon tested that theory, too. He asked Sheppard questions about the City of the Ancestors, about its security and defense capabilities. Sensitive topics that no soldier should reveal. Sheppard, though, answered every question without hesitation. He answered thoroughly and completely and offered to draw schematics.

“Were you allowed to tell me that?” Ronon asked, when he was done.

“No,” Sheppard said. “I’m not.” And then he looked almost sad.

Ronon thought about taking Sheppard through the Ring to a planet he knew the man’s people frequented. He wouldn’t need the device Sheppard had smashed. The sphere of Atlantis’ influence was pretty well known and though Ronon didn’t follow their schedule as closely as he did the Wraith, it probably wouldn’t be long before he was found.

But, he already knew the doctors had not figured out how to cure Sheppard. It occurred to him that they would probably find out where he’d been after he ran off, and more soldiers would show up on Sateda.

“You’re going to let me stay?” Sheppard asked then, almost as if he could read Ronon’s mind.

“For now,” Ronon said.

“Okay,” Sheppard said, and then he gave an entirely too worshipful smile.

~

Sheppard’s attachment to Ronon made him almost childlike. He had to be literally instructed to do the most basic task. It was really annoying. The lack of resistance meant a total lack of initiative. Sheppard evidently had no intention of doing anything beyond sitting unmoving and silent – while staring at Ronon – until specifically instructed otherwise.

Ronon managed to get him to undress and bathe in the shower, only to have him come trotting out freshly cleaned and completely naked because he hadn’t been told to redress. Or, the thing in his skull was designed to interfere with any objection Sheppard might have had to presenting himself naked to Ronon, which was equally likely.

Ronon found Sheppard a pair of soft pajamas that fit, made him eat a small portion of rations, and then sent him to go sleep in a nearby bedroom.

It was then that Sheppard displayed that he still had the tiniest bit of freewill left.  When Ronon pointed to the door to the room where Sheppard could sleep, the man paused in obeying. He looked at the doorway, looked back at Ronon, and then looked more pointedly at Ronon’s own bedroom.

“In there?” Sheppard asked.

“Yeah,” Ronon said, and folded his arms so that his body blocked the doorway to his own bedroom.

Sheppard looked visibly disappointed. Ronon retracted the idea that this was freewill; it was just another sick part of that thing attached to Sheppard’s head.

“Go,” Ronon said, because Sheppard hadn’t moved.

Sheppard obeyed, this time. Instantly.  Without another word, he turned around and walked into the room, padding towards the bed and out of Ronon’s sightline. It was a relief that he didn’t persist with what probably was a degrading urge, but Ronon didn’t feel particularly good about ordering the man away when Sheppard had absolutely no choice in the matter.

Ronon gave more thought to taking Sheppard to a planet where his people could find him, but that was a task for tomorrow. He went into his own room, locked the door, and quickly fell asleep.

~

The following morning, Ronon woke at the usual time. He rose, dressed, and walked out of his bedroom as he did every day. As he entered the hallway, instead of hitting the stone floor, his foot landed on something warm and solid. Ronon looked down, already knowing that he was stepping on Sheppard.

The man had spent the night curled up at the base of the door to Ronon’s bedroom. If Ronon hadn’t locked it, he probably would have come inside.

Ronon applied light pressure with his foot to Sheppard’s flank, having quickly readjusted his weight as not to crush any ribs. Slowly, Sheppard squirmed away, grunting sleepily. Ronon prodded harder and the man’s eye fluttered open.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, peering up at him. For a moment, he sounded normal. In the next second, his gaze returned to that artificially intense stare and his face became clouded. “Um.” Sheppard pulled himself into a crawl, unfolding his limbs. He looked embarrassed and a little worried. “I couldn’t sleep in there.”

Ronon didn’t say anything, just offered down a hand to pull Sheppard up. The man took his hand and gripped hard. He didn’t try to lift himself, just let Ronon pull him straight off the floor. He also didn’t let go of Ronon’s palm, holding it tightly even after he was upright. Ronon waited for him to release it, then quickly jerked his hand free. This was getting creepier.

There was nothing about this that wasn’t creepy, actually. Including the fact that Sheppard seemed to be getting better. Nothing having to do with his obsession with Ronon was improving, but in general the man seemed healthier than the night before. His color was better and he didn’t look as ill if you ignored the way he stared at Ronon. He didn’t need as many literal instructions, able to get himself washed, dressed, and fed with only a little supervision.  Ronon gave Sheppard some rations for breakfast and ate his own, silently. He thought more about trying to return him to a planet where his people would find him.

Sheppard didn’t speak, not even to comment on the bland taste of the breakfast meal. He just watched Ronon, face expressionless. For his part, Ronon avoided eye contact.

“You want to send me away,” Sheppard observed after a few minutes. He didn’t sound upset about it.

Ronon looked up. “Yeah,” he said. “You should go home.”

Sheppard kept eating, still calm and unalarmed. “I want to stay here.” He swallowed, put down his spoon.

“No,” Ronon said.

Sheppard frowned. “I’d come back,” he said. If the man’s demeanor hadn’t been so flat and quiet, it would have sounded like a threat.

“Aren’t you supposed to do what I say?” Ronon asked, and he might have been a little annoyed.

Sheppard didn’t answer, and for a second his face was just lucid enough to reflect just how pissed off he was about that.

~

Like it or not – and neither of them did like it – Sheppard did have to do what Ronon said.  At the same time, the metal device in his neck compelled Sheppard to do things that Ronon didn’t want him to do, things Sheppard himself probably didn’t want to do.  It was designed, he figured, to create an attached and obedient slave. Except that Ronon didn’t want a slave.

Sheppard didn’t talk about why he felt the need to follow Ronon’s every move while staring at him hungrily. He probably would have if asked, but Ronon genuinely didn’t want to know. It was easy to imagine the humiliating tasks the Arachans expected a slave to perform, but Ronon just had Sheppard help him assemble ammunition shells.

The work had to be done; usually Ronon did it by himself, as he did everything. It was slow and repetitive, requiring total focus and attention. For this, it was almost perfect to engage Sheppard. It was also dangerous, but Sheppard was a soldier. Ronon figured he had experience working with explosives or he wouldn’t have all his fingers left.

Sheppard seemed to like it, too. Or the thing in his neck made him like being instructed to do a specific task, Ronon wasn’t sure. The work went much faster with two people. Sheppard was competent; he immediately understood how to ration the materials and secure each container safely. The activity seemed to relax him, as well.

“So,” Sheppard said, when they finished and were loading the ammunition into boxes. “This is what you do now? You’re an anti-Wraith MacGyver?”

Ronon didn’t understand. “I kill Wraith,” he said. “I help other worlds kill Wraith.”

“Cool,” Sheppard said. His eyes were, for once, not on Ronon. He was looking around the armory at Ronon’s stockpile. “Like Robin Hood. Except with guns.”

“What?” asked Ronon.

“It’s a legend from my world,” Sheppard said. “Guy stole from the rich to save the poor.”

“I don’t steal,” Ronon said.

The smile dropped off Sheppard’s face and he idly scratched at the back of his neck. “I’m no Little John.”

It was a change, at least, to have the man acting what was probably a little more normal. Making jokes, even if Ronon didn’t get them. It was probably a good sign.

  
“Wanna help me build some bombs?” Ronon asked. 

~

Sheppard was as competent and interested in bombs as he was in ammunition. It made the days easy. There was a lot to do and it kept Sheppard focused. When he was occupied, it was almost possible to forget that he wasn’t operating under his own freewill. Sheppard even came up with ideas to make the artillery more affective and started modifying the parts immediately. He still stared at Ronon intensely but didn’t do anything else.

The nights were different. Once Sheppard didn’t have a task to focus on, things fell apart completely. Sheppard fell apart. He turned back into the disoriented and clingy man Ronon had found on the floor of his bedroom door. He wanted to follow Ronon everywhere and when he wasn’t allowed to, he got upset.

It was like dealing with a child, except that a child probably wouldn’t have been able to break the lock off Ronon’s bedroom door. Sheppard did it sometime in the afternoon of the third day, which meant he was planning ahead. He also did it fairly stealthily, so Ronon didn’t notice until he closed his door that night and discovered the latch was bent and the closing mechanism ripped off the frame.

Ronon had no idea what to do. He paused long enough that his first impulse wasn’t to smack Sheppard’s face into it, then opened the door. Sheppard was bedding down in the hallway again. He didn’t even pretend that he was going to sleep in the other room, but he was pretending that he had no idea why Ronon was glaring at him. Ronon tapped the door frame, his finger resting on the busted lock.

Sheppard’s eyes followed his hand and his face immediately crumpled. His shoulders hunched like he expected Ronon to attack him, his hands scrabbling at the sheet he’d been pulling over himself.

Immediately, Ronon stopped moving and held very still. Sheppard froze, as well, face still full of fear. Finally, Ronon took a step back into his own room and lightly pulled the door shut. After a few seconds, he walked across the room, grabbed a large bureau and dragged it in front of the door. He felt ridiculous. Sheppard wasn’t a threat. But Ronon also didn’t want the man and the thing in his neck entering his room while he slept.     

The following night, Ronon locked Sheppard in another bedroom. He didn’t have an explicit reason, other than the man wasn’t in control of himself and Ronon’s bedroom door no longer had a lock.

At first, Sheppard obeyed as quickly as he always did, even as the look on his face said he was going to end up on the floor outside Ronon’s room like a puppy, anyway. He understood, evidently, that sleeping in the hall was bizarre.

“I can’t help it,” Sheppard said, as Ronon escorted him into the room and pointed at the bed.

Ronon didn’t say anything, waiting until Sheppard sat down on the mattress and looked plaintively at him.

“Stay in here,” Ronon said. He stood in front of the door knob, blocking Sheppard’s view of it as he adjusted the locking mechanism so it couldn’t be opened from the inside.

Sheppard’s face fell even further, but he said the word he almost always did when given a command. “Okay.”

Ronon stepped outside and pulled the door shut. He locked it, quietly, but sure that Sheppard would hear the sound of the bolt sliding into place. There was only silence from within, though. He guessed that Sheppard couldn’t object, and as much as that wasn’t Ronon’s fault, he still managed to feel pretty shitty about it.

Sheppard started objecting about half an hour later, though. Ronon could hear the door shaking on its hinges, with the occasional crash that sounded as if Sheppard was throwing himself against it. The door was strong and thick, the lock solid. If anything, Sheppard was probably hurting himself. Ronon considered letting him out, but then the room went quiet as if the man had given up.

Ronon lay in the dark for a few minutes, wondering if the isolation would help any. He figured he’d find out in the morning, and drifted off to sleep.

He found out a lot earlier, because Sheppard pushed the door to his room ajar and Ronon sat up in bed and tried to shoot him before his eyes were even fully open. Sheppard dived to the floor and Ronon’s weapon blast was absorbed harmlessly into the wall. A few seconds later, Sheppard’s head popped back into view. Even in the darkness, his eyes found Ronon’s and he smiled sheepishly.  

Sheppard hadn’t been able to break the lock or knock the door down. He had, however, been able to get a window open, climb three stories down the side of the building, re-enter the front door, and then walk right into Ronon’s bedroom through the unlocked door. He’d been barefoot the whole time – he’d shown up in a flimsy pair of patient slippers and Ronon hadn’t given him any shoes yet – and managed to scrape up his feet, his legs, and his hands.

Ronon ended up taking Sheppard into the bathroom to clean up. Sheppard was pale and sweaty, rocking back and forth in place on the ripped up soles of his feet. He looked worn out, but at the same time so totally thrilled that Ronon was paying him close attention he didn’t even appear to notice his injuries.

Shoving Sheppard to a seat on the toilet lid, Ronon used a knife to slice the man’s clothes off so he wouldn’t have to pull the fabric over the scrapes. As soon as he was done, he had the thought that it may not have been a good idea. But Sheppard didn’t even move, might not have even realized he’d been undressed. He noticed, probably only because Ronon paused in his movements.

“I don’t,” Sheppard said. He was staring at Ronon, as usual, eyes huge and not really focused. “I don’t want…that’s not what I want.” His forehead creased. “Unless you wanted, then I’d probably want to, don’t worry…” Sheppard babbled.

Ronon decided to ignore him. Nothing Sheppard said meant anything – he didn’t think the man could speak freely. He saw big red patches on Sheppard’s chest and back, future bruises from throwing himself against the door. Ronon went to get a medical kit for the cuts, had to order Sheppard to stay, because the man rose immediately and tried to follow him, leaving bloody footprints on the bathroom tile.

In the end, Ronon made him get in the bathtub and turned the water on. He would have liked to leave the man to wash himself, but Sheppard’s daytime coherency was nowhere to be found. Ronon had to clean the wounds, because Sheppard didn’t even seem to realize he was injured. It had to hurt, even more so when Ronon poured disinfectant over each cut. Sheppard did flinch, but mostly he kept staring at Ronon and babbling nonsense with an empty grin on his face.

After he got the wounds clean of dirt and gravel, Ronon picked Sheppard up by the armpits and dumped him none too gently on to the rug covering the tile floor.  He wasn’t a nurse or a nanny, he didn’t know how to do this properly. He’d given thoughts a while ago to leaving Sateda and finding a home among a new people. But it had been too long, it was too hard and too complicated to try to learn how to do that. He’d stayed because he wanted to be alone. He hadn’t asked for a man who had lost his mind as a pet. Ronon had only been trying to end the debt he’d owed Sheppard.

This was why Ronon might have been a little rough as he dried Sheppard off, leaving red angry patches showing brightly against the man’s pale skin. It didn’t make him feel any better, though, because Sheppard should have been pulling away in discomfort, crying out and demanding that he stop. Instead, the man was limply cooperative, still grinning, humming happily to himself.

Ronon forced his hands to move slower, his touch to be lighter. He put down the towel and began bandaging, still gentle.

“You hurt yourself,” he said, mostly to remind himself that Sheppard was not well.

“You sent me away,” Sheppard answered, anyway. It wasn’t a retort, even, just an honest and immediate response. “That hurt.”

And then he leaned forward, such that his sopping wet head came down to rest on Ronon’s shoulder. He didn’t do anything else, legs splayed out on the floor and arms flopped at his sides. It didn’t interfere with taping up Sheppard’s cuts, so Ronon let him stay.

Afterwards, the idea of forcing Sheppard to sleep somewhere else and the probability that it wouldn’t work anyway was too overwhelming. Ronon threw a pile of blankets on the floor of his bedroom, grabbed Sheppard by the armpits again, and dropped him there.

It was awkward in the morning, when a more collected Sheppard woke up naked at the foot of Ronon’s bed. Ronon feigned sleep while the man moved quietly around the room. He was relieved to hear the sound of drawers opening and fabric rustling. When he opened his eyes and sat up, Sheppard was walking gingerly on his tiptoes, propping a leg up on a chair to roll up the too long woven pants he’d just swiped from the bureau. Sheppard finished and dropped into the seat, eyes coming to land on Ronon.

“Hi,” Sheppard said.

“Hey,” Ronon said. He threw the covers back, ready to stand.

Sheppard was picking at the bandage on his left elbow. “It gets really bad,” he said, rushed and mumbled.

“Yeah,” Ronon said.

“I know I don’t want to do any of it,” Sheppard continued, and for once his gaze was somewhere past Ronon. “But I have to. I can’t help it. It’s too much.”

“Yeah,” Ronon said, again. There wasn’t really anything else to say to that. He got up and went to use the bathroom. On a mirror on the wall, he caught sight of Sheppard staring after him, one hand raised and rubbing the back of his neck.

~

The days stayed manageable. Sheppard was a pretty good soldier. He continued to assist with the daily arsenal chores without incident. Eventually he was able to organize his thoughts enough to ask Ronon how the distribution system worked. He seemed pretty impressed with the trade arrangements Ronon had in place with various worlds and was really interested in learning about the way he tracked Wraith-targeted planets and was beginning to predict their scheduled culls.

Sheppard was calmer and seemingly more lucid, but Ronon wasn’t convinced that anything the man said was genuinely felt. The thing in his neck probably forced him admire Ronon, and that just soured everything.

If he forgot about the Arachan device controlling Sheppard’s every thought, having Sheppard around was okay. It was useful to have help getting the weapons ready. Sheppard didn’t talk much and outside of the things he couldn’t control, wasn’t that annoying. The things he couldn’t control were annoying beyond all reason, though. It was strange to have someone around after so long, and it was weirder still to have someone so utterly dependent on him. The fact that Ronon hadn’t sent him away already probably meant he didn’t hate it.

Okay, he hated the nights. They didn’t get any better. Ronon didn’t know why. It was predictable, at least. He tried to ward it off by giving Sheppard pointless tasks to hold his attention. It didn’t help. Sheppard painted half the upstairs and fixed three leaks in the roof, but he still had a total and complete meltdown when Ronon tried to leave the room.

Sheppard stayed in the blanket nest at the foot of his bed. Ronon didn’t like this. It was too much like a house pet. He moved a smaller bed in there, tried to make Sheppard use it. He would go to sleep in it, but in the morning he was always on the floor again, as close to Ronon as he could get without climbing into bed with him.

Ronon would have tossed him out of it, anyway, and Sheppard probably knew that. Even while in the midst of a tantrum because Ronon was too far away from him, Sheppard maintained a pretty good understanding of where Ronon’s head was at. He didn’t always care, but he always seemed to know. It was too good to be simple intuition. He chalked it up to another facet of the Arachan device; a good slave needed to be aware of his master’s needs and emotions.

Sheppard could tell, somehow, when Ronon was hot or cold, hungry or thirsty. He did things like run off and get him a drink or open a window, without being asked. Ronon didn’t think about this much because it, like everything else, was creepy. The extent to which Sheppard could perceive other things, like when Ronon was losing patience with having him underfoot or wishing for just five minutes alone, was less clear. Sheppard might have known about it, but he didn’t alter his behavior. In fact, it seemed to make him worse. Maybe he didn’t have a programmed response for when his master wanted him gone.

~

Having another person on Sateda was strange; it kept reminding Ronon of a time when there’d been other living people on the planet. These were thoughts he tried to keep out of his head. It made him feel raw and unsettled, like he had his first few months back. To Sheppard, Sateda was probably just a wasteland. The man didn’t say much about it, either not coherent enough to communicate anything particularly complex or picking up on the fact that wasteland or not, this was Ronon’s home.

“Rough,” was the extent of Sheppard’s commentary, the first time he walked with Ronon through the ruins.

It wasn’t hard to remember that Sheppard was a foreigner. He had trouble navigating the debris and nearly blew his legs off on the first trip. Ronon had to grab him before he stepped on a cluster bomb. It was a miracle he’d managed to get to Ronon’s house on his own, especially with the condition he’d been in.

There was an open, stable mine that Ronon used for certain elements needed for most types of ammunition. It was outside the city and he had to walk through the wreckage to get there. Taking Sheppard was a nightmare because, without fail, he would manage to stumble off the safely cleared path and try to step on something unexploded. He did this every single time. Ronon tried to leave him behind, but that didn’t work because Sheppard wouldn’t stay in the house and followed him, anyway. It was safer for Ronon to bring him, because at least he’d be there to grab him and yank him back on the path.

Sheppard was good with explosives, but he must have sucked at reconnaissance missions. Or hell, anything that required marching in a straight line.

“I’m a pilot,” Sheppard muttered the fourth or fifth time Ronon had to grab him and put him back on his feet. “Not a foot soldier.”

The woods were only better because they were mostly free of things which exploded. It was thick and overgrown, the only path the one repeatedly chopped clear by Ronon. There must have been some kind of routine landscaping before, because it hadn’t been this tangled when Ronon had played there as a child.

There weren’t any grenades to kick, so Sheppard settled for tripping over every downed log, walking into a massive grove of poisonous _achyltie_ plants, and stepping on a hive of _peschults_ that got really angry and stung him all over.

Sheppard’s reaction to all this was bizarre. He never responded the way he should have. It was like he couldn’t feel pain, like it was some strange sensation he couldn’t interpret. The little incidents were okay. He would get back up, usually looking confused. Sometimes he would kick whatever it was that had tripped him. This made sense, and Ronon preferred this outcome. Unless it was a grenade Sheppard was trying to kick, then he had to grab the man and shake him a little bit.  They could continue the mission to the mine. Sheppard was usually embarrassed and angry, but he kept it together. Ronon pretended nothing had happened. Sheppard fell a lot but he’d never gotten more than a skinned knee – something he usually wouldn’t notice until Ronon bandaged it when they got home.

Other times it was a different story. That was when Ronon remembered that something was seriously wrong with Sheppard, remembered that the metal thing was in his head messing with him. It happened with the more frightening things – the _achyltie_ and the _peschults_ – but smaller events could also do it. Once Sheppard fell in a small creek and the same thing happened.

It was a lot like when Sheppard had scraped the hell out of himself climbing out the window, except worse because Ronon had to figure out how to get the agitated and disoriented man who couldn’t control his limbs well enough to walk and didn’t want to do anything but _hug_ Ronon back to the house without either of them getting injured in the ruins.

It was mostly disturbing, but after the first few times when Ronon wasn’t sure if his new companion had permanently lost his mind, it got easier. Easier for Ronon, anyway.  He didn’t really have to do anything. In that condition, Sheppard was hysterical if Ronon wasn’t touching him and euphoric if he was. Ronon just got a grip on him and waited until he came back to his senses. Since Ronon usually had to hold him still while trying to wash one of his cuts, clean the _achyltie_ oil off his skin, or pull _peschult_ stingers out of him, it wasn’t that much trouble.

Sheppard enjoyed it less. After the meltdowns, he was embarrassed and withdrawn. He evidently remembered what happened, even if he had no control over himself while it occurred. It was maybe the most normal he ever was, afterwards when he was pissed off about what had been done to him. Pissed off about it, and yet still looking at Ronon like he was the center of the universe.

“This isn’t me,” he said, the night of the incident with the _achyltie_ encounter. He was sitting shirtless in his nest-like bed on the floor, his hands fiddling restlessly. Ronon figured he was trying not the scratch the rash that was already emerging across his chest. He could have just told him not to touch it and Sheppard would have mindlessly obeyed. But Ronon tried not to order the man around. He didn’t like the blank, empty face that appeared whenever he did.

Ronon didn’t turn to face Sheppard. He generally tried not to remind Sheppard just how weird everything about this situation was. In his place, he wouldn’t want to be stared at like a freak show.  Ronon didn’t want to talk about it, either, since everything he had to say involved the intent to eventually return Sheppard to his people. It would only lead to another tantrum.

“I know how to walk,” Sheppard was saying. “It’s this goddamn thing.” He moved one hand up behind his neck.

Ronon believed him. Sheppard was so clumsy it bordered on disability. It was confined only to movement required to travel – his hands worked just fine.

“What the fuck,” Sheppard muttered, and his tone was getting darker and angrier.

That made Ronon look up, mostly because Sheppard had occasionally managed to have a second meltdown in one day, just by getting really upset about the first one.

“It’s okay,” Ronon said.

He had, actually, tried ordering Sheppard to calm down before. It didn’t work. Sheppard was himself enough to really resent being treated like that, but at the same time still under the influence of the thing that made him want to obey. It disintegrated from there, and Ronon usually ended up with an armful of a man who was trembling hysterically while apologizing profusely for not being able to follow his orders.

Sheppard looked back at Ronon, silent for a moment. It was impossible to tell if he was actually comforted by the words, or if he just really liked it when Ronon made eye contact. But he wasn’t getting any more worked up, which was the point.

“I think it’s so you can’t escape,” Ronon continued. Sheppard also liked to be talked to. It didn’t always matter what he said. He’d handled the creek incident by telling Sheppard – as calmly as possible – the lengthy process of how to smelt raw ore into a nice sharp blade. It had worked, enough that they actually were able to make it to the mine that trip.

“Escape?” Sheppard muttered. His posture was relaxing, his aggression dissipating. “I can’t escape.” He looked at Ronon with wide eyes. “I can’t even think about it.” He waved a loose arm up at his neck. “All this tells me is to _stay_.”

Ronon shrugged. He knew Sheppard, on some level, was still able to hate what was going on. Physical handicap was probably just another means of restraint. He had a few ideas what the Arachans might use clumsy slaves for, but Sheppard didn’t need to think about that.

In another incident that made Ronon wonder if the other man could read his mind, Sheppard seemed to make the connection, anyway.

“I’m glad it was you,” he said, softly, sinking down into the blankets.


	3. The Year of Jubilee

Three weeks after Sheppard’s arrival, Ronon had another delivery mission scheduled. He didn’t tell Sheppard, initially. But the man got all twitchy and strange, watching Ronon like he thought he was going to leave any second, so he must have figured it out anyway. Ronon hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even begun preparing to go.

Taking Sheppard with him was not an option. The mission stretched overnight and there was no way Ronon was going to find out if Sheppard could handle traveling when he sometimes couldn’t handle brushing his teeth. Even if Sheppard was on his best, most lucid behavior, it was out of the question. Many of the worlds Ronon visited were as grateful for the weapons as they were suspicious of newcomers.  They liked the man that brought them ways to kill Wraith – they’d like him less if he had an utterly insane slave at his side.

It was the first time in years that Ronon had to consider someone else before acting. It was new, so new Ronon wasn’t sure what he should do. For himself, he wouldn’t have altered the mission plan at all. He had no idea how Sheppard would react to being left alone for a few days. Considering he didn’t like being left alone for minutes while Ronon went to the bathroom, it didn’t seem to bode well.

Ronon’s plan was two-sided. On his end, he shortened the mission. He only really needed three days to accomplish the goal. There were four cities on Caxa, and it would take him that long to travel to all four, deliver his arms and receive payment, and return to the Ring. He had intended to stay longer. The Corfu had sweet wine and a monthly festival where you got to drink lots of it.

Shepppard’s end was more complicated. The first thing Ronon did was make sure that he wouldn’t be followed. He secured the windows on the second bedroom Sheppard had never slept in. It wasn’t discreet – he had to make sure Sheppard couldn’t get at the glass, and he put up enormous pieces of scrap metal to that end. Since, of course, Sheppard wouldn’t leave him alone, the man watched him as he worked. He didn’t volunteer to help, though. Ronon didn’t ask, either, watching the way Sheppard’s eyes narrowed and his body language went tense and alarmed.

He didn’t get upset, yet. Ronon wondered if he even could, or if the Arachan mind control would only kick in later. Sheppard definitely knew what was coming, but for the moment he just watched with apprehension as Ronon installed three more locks on the door frame.

Ronon put more than three days supplies of food and water in the room, too. Sheppard glared at it, but said nothing. The mission wasn’t going to be dangerous, but Ronon didn’t want Sheppard to become hungry or thirsty if he was delayed in returning. This made him wonder what would happen to the Arachan device if Ronon died, if it would still link Sheppard to a dead man.  He figured Sheppard was resourceful enough to escape, eventually, if Ronon really didn’t come back. There wasn’t anything he could do if the thing in his neck decided to fry him, though.

“Gonna leave me a litter box?” Sheppard asked. His hands were clutched together in his lap and he was looking up at Ronon from lowered lids.

Ronon went and found a bucket, that particular arrangement having slipped his mind.

“I’m coming back,” Ronon promised. Sheppard didn’t say anything, but his body was tense and coiled. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he added, knowing that order wouldn’t stick either.

Locking Sheppard in the room wasn’t hard. The man didn’t fight, he just sat on the bed as instructed and watched Ronon shut the door. His face was grim, eyes dark and clouded.

Ronon knew from experience the passiveness would only last a short time, and he immediately left for the Ring before he could hear Sheppard trying to get out.

~

The mission went as predicted. The leaders were a combination of relieved and excited to see him, meaning they’d probably seen Wraith scouts in the sky recently. They paid him the promised amount and he went on his way to the next city. It was odd, having his mind drift back to the man he’d left on Sateda. It distracted him from the business at hand, which was annoying. Then he started wondering, again, if the thing in Sheppard’s neck could somehow influence Ronon, as well. The thought freaked him out and he forced himself to ignore it.

He skipped the Corfu wine festival and returned to Sateda as planned. It wasn’t until he walked through the Ring that he realized how worried he was. Sheppard had been alone for three days and Ronon had no idea what to expect.

It was both better and worse that Ronon had thought.

Sheppard was alive. He smelled _horrible_ , and Ronon couldn’t see how he looked because the moment the door was open, Sheppard launched himself forward and wrapped himself around Ronon with such force that they both toppled to the ground. Ronon ended up on his knees on the floor, and Sheppard contorted himself into a position where both his arms and legs managed to encircle Ronon’s body. Then he wedged his head under Ronon’s chin, pressed his face flat against Ronon’s clavicle, and started sobbing hysterically.

There really wasn’t anything else to do, so Ronon just readjusted his feet so he could sit back on his heels more comfortably. It was hard to do with nearly 200 pounds of man holding on to him. Ronon rested one hand on the floor to keep upright, cupping the other one around the back of Sheppard’s head. The touch actually made Sheppard cry harder. Ronon could feel liquid warmth soaking his shirt, Sheppard’s shoulders heaving.

The room was trashed. Sheppard had tried to rip the metal sheets off the windows. There was a man sized dent in the middle of one of them. It also looked like he’d dismantled the furniture and tried to smash through the walls. The whole room smelled of desperate, bitter sweat and urine. Sheppard reeked of it, too.

He hadn’t touched his food. The rations had been knocked over, but Ronon could see the container was completely full. Immediately, Ronon looked for the water he’d left. Sheppard had either drunk it all or spilled it. It hadn’t occurred to him that Sheppard wouldn’t be able to hold it together enough to realize he needed to drink water.

But Sheppard was hydrated enough to cry and to sweat – Ronon could feel ample proof of both.

He let Sheppard stay where he was for a few more seconds. The crying wasn’t stopping and Sheppard was holding on so hard it actually hurt. Sheppard lifted his head, slightly, and the next thing Ronon knew he actually felt teeth scraping against his neck.

“Okay,” Ronon said. He took his hand off the ground and tensed his knees, preparing to stand. Sheppard must have felt him moving, but he didn’t react at all. Ronon had to disentangle Sheppard’s legs so he could rise, and the man stayed latched on to his torso.  His teeth stayed where they were, too, and it was starting to sting.

Sheppard didn’t resist when Ronon unpeeled his arms from around his own shoulders and dumped him, fully clothed, in the bathtub. He did make a grab for Ronon’s hands, miss, and end up holding tightly to his forearms while Ronon turned on the faucets.

“You stink,” Ronon said.

Sheppard blinked at him from red, swollen eyes. Silently, he leaned forward ‘til his face was against Ronon’s hair. And then he started crying again, in big, gasping sobs.

~

It took hours for Sheppard to calm down. Talking to him didn’t seem to help at all. In between sobs, Sheppard whimpered unintelligibly. If Ronon would have let him, he probably would have climbed out of the tub and back into his lap. He had to settle for holding on to Ronon’s forearms and burying his face in his hair. It made cleaning him up hard, but Ronon managed to fill the tub and slice off Sheppard’s sodden clothes.

Sheppard didn’t even seem to notice he was being bathed, not even with soap and water was dripping down his face. He did stop crying, finally, but his body kept shuddering in strange, empty sobs. Ronon didn’t try to move him, even as the water cooled to tepid, making him notice just how wet he was with Sheppard draped over him.

Eventually, Ronon realized Sheppard had gone quiet and still. He peered at him, trying to find the man’s face pressed against his dreads. Ronon thought he might have fallen asleep, but he found Sheppard’s eyes open and blinking.

“Hey,” he tried.

For a few seconds, Sheppard didn’t react. Then, his eyes fluttered sluggishly to meet Ronon’s gaze.

“Hrm,” Sheppard said. His voice sounded raw and hoarse.

“Think you can get up?” Ronon asked.

Sheppard’s fingers dugs into his skin as the man suddenly gripped tighter.

“Dunno,” he said. He sniffled loudly, abruptly released his hold on Ronon with one hand so he could rub at his face.

That was a good sign, Ronon figured. He was coming back to himself.

Giving the man time to at least pretend like he was participating, Ronon got to his feet, pulling Sheppard up with him. Getting a towel around him when Sheppard was barely able to stand and, also, again trying to wrap himself around Ronon was harder.

“You need to eat,” Ronon said.

Sheppard kind of snuffled. He put one hand on the towel to hold it up, the other stayed clenched around Ronon.

In the kitchen, Sheppard made unhappy noises when Ronon made him sit in his own chair. He sat next to him, though, rather than across the table. Sheppard kept hold of Ronon’s arm, not really paying attention to the rations placed before him.

“Eat,” Ronon said.

“Might puke,” Sheppard said, but he was already picking up a utensil.

“Slow,” Ronon reminded him.

Sheppard nodded. He worked his way through the meal in tiny, hesitant bites. As usual, Ronon wasn’t even sure he could taste it or if he was just systematically obeying the order.

He still looked terrible, even if he didn’t smell anymore. His eyes were red and swollen, his face pinched from crying. Sheppard’s fingers were scraped and bloodied, probably from trying to pry and smash his way out of the room.

Ronon tried to withdraw the arm Sheppard was still holding tightly, and the man looked up sharply from his meal. His fingernails sank into Ronon’s skin as his grip suddenly increased.

“Can I just…” Sheppard said, unable to verbalize the request completely. “Please?”

“Yeah.” Ronon kept his arm on the table.

Sheppard sighed deeply. His eyes were averted, as they usually were in the moments when he was the most aware of what was happening.  Slowly, his gaze lifted from the table top and found Ronon’s.

“If you have to,” he said, and his voice was still thick but markedly coherent. “If you need to… you should…” and then he reached over and brushed Ronon’s holster with the back of the hand holding his eating utensil.

“What?” Ronon asked.

With effort, Sheppard tapped the weapon again. “Just do it,” he said. “If you have to go…it’s okay. I prefer it.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Ronon said.

The expression on Sheppard’s face cracked, and he looked like he was going to cry again. “I prefer it,” he repeated.

~

 

It stayed bad for a long time. Leaving Sheppard had been a huge mistake. It was like starting all over again, except this time Sheppard wasn’t even together enough to help with bullet assembly. He’d lost the manual dexterity, just as clumsy with his hands as he was on his feet. Ronon blamed the device in his neck; Sheppard blamed himself and was furious about it. Dully furious, anyway, since he lacked the energy and focus to fully process the emotion.

He still wanted to help Ronon with his work. Ronon tried giving him a few basic tasks with nothing that could explode. Sheppard dropped, fumbled, or broke everything he touched. And then he got upset and tried to crawl into Ronon’s lap for comfort. The first few times, Ronon wouldn’t let him and Sheppard’s behavior progressed to a full blown meltdown. He ended up in Ronon’s lap, anyway, face contorted like he was trying desperately not to cry.

It sucked.

After that, Ronon gave him a simple task that couldn’t be broken or really done wrong, for that matter. He had him stamp the Satedan glyph for vengeance onto the soft clay used to seal the ammunition into the shells. Sheppard didn’t read Satedan, so he couldn’t know how badly he was screwing it up and thus couldn’t get upset. He couldn’t break unbaked clay, either.

“I _hate_ this,” Sheppard hissed, violently bringing the stamp down on to the strip of clay before him. Ronon noted that he missed twice before getting half the glyph on the edge of it.

“It’s okay,” Ronon said. It was pretty much the only thing Ronon ever said to him, now. Sometimes it averted a crisis, but those were so common now saying it was mostly reflex.

It wasn’t okay, and Sheppard knew that. His reasons were about his own worsening condition. Ronon’s reasons had more to do with how mad Sheppard’s people were going to be when he returned their man to them and he was like this. It’d been long enough that they would rightly feel that Ronon had kept him to either make him worse or not let him get better.

“Feels like my arms don’t belong to me,” Sheppard said, waving one hand loosely. “Like they’re going to float away.”

That was how they discovered a third thing that calmed and centered Sheppard. It should have been Ronon’s favorite, since it didn’t involve him at all. He didn’t have to talk or touch or cradle him in his lap.

They both hated it. Well, Ronon hated it outright, and Sheppard really liked it and hated that he did.

Sheppard liked being restrained. Ronon only reached out and pinned Sheppard’s wrists down because he was getting upset and beginning to flail, and the motion immediately stilled him. It didn’t abort the meltdown – probably because Sheppard realized just how sick it was and got upset all over again – but it did seem to shorten it.

Ronon refused to actually tie the man up. But he knew a thing that would make his life easier when he saw it, so he was willing to pretend. There didn’t seem to be much difference in how Sheppard reacted to sincerely being restrained and to the weight of one of Ronon’s spare belts wrapped loosely around his wrists.

It made him more focused and calmer, and improved his aim such that sometimes the vengeance glyph was actually centered in the clay.

~

 

Sheppard liked wearing the belt. He probably liked the fact that Ronon put it on him, too, because he never did it himself. It just kind of came out automatically, because his behavior deteriorated that quickly and that badly. It was a different kind of meltdown, too. The same pathological need to be close to Ronon with the same total loss of reason. But physically, it was different. Previously, Sheppard had been limp and uncoordinated. Now, the emotional explosion included his body. Sheppard flailed violently, and since he was usually trying to grab at Ronon at the time, Ronon kept ending up with a thumb in his eye or knuckles mashing his nose. Sheppard also resorted to biting a lot – gnawing on whatever part of Ronon he happened to get his teeth around. It bothered him more than the hitting, not just because it hurt more, but because it was so bestial.

A couple of times, Ronon reacted instinctually – and once he knew exactly what he was doing because Sheppard managed to slam a knee into his balls and it _hurt_ – and flattened the man.

Afterwards, Ronon felt bad. Not too bad, though, since it never really hurt Sheppard. It was the same strange reaction the man had had to pain since the beginning. It tended to make him stop moving, and that was about it. As usual, it also made him even more eager for Ronon’s touch. It belatedly occurred to Ronon why and then he felt worse.

The Arachans could beat their slaves as much as and whenever they wanted if the slaves liked it too much to want to run away or murder their masters.

So, Ronon used the belt. It didn’t involve hitting Sheppard and it comforted him enough that Ronon didn’t take as many accidental elbows to the face. He still ended up with a restrained Sheppard crawling all over him, more often than not. Ronon almost wondered if the new violent flailing was deliberate, because it got a reaction Sheppard was programmed to enjoy. He didn’t think so, didn’t think Sheppard had any control over himself.

There were still occasions where Sheppard seemed aware, and in those moments he was always deeply embarrassed if not angry. The shot to the groin might have been one of those moments, Ronon wasn’t sure. He might have expected brutal retaliation, might have wanted Ronon to seriously try to kill him.

~

Sheppard made the request more directly three days before Ronon’s next scheduled offworld trip. While Ronon was bathing, Sheppard swiped his gun from his holster. It was probably only his muddled thoughts and manual clumsiness that meant he was still trying to figure out the firing mechanism when Ronon got out of the shower, found his pants, and realized it was missing.

“Give me that,” Ronon ordered, reaching out for it.

Immediately, Sheppard handed it over. Just as quickly, as soon as it was gone, Sheppard looked down at his empty hands and his face fell. His head dropped and his shoulders hunched up as they usually did when Sheppard thought he was in trouble. The reaction didn’t jive with the fact that the device in his neck made him like being hit, but there it was all the same.

Ronon holstered his gun and slid it across his hip, more out of reach. “Don’t do that,” he said.   

Sheppard stayed there, shoulders hunched, while he went and got fully dressed. Ronon never tried to interact with him when he got like that. There was really only one possible outcome and Ronon accidentally set of far too many of those to do it on purpose.

After a few minutes, Sheppard followed him anyway, of course. Ronon was cleaning and sharpening his knives, something that didn’t really have to be done but was a part of his routine anyway. Sheppard didn’t help anymore because if he ever got his mind back, he would probably like to still have all his fingers.

Sheppard pulled a chair up next to Ronon, closer than was strictly necessary.

“You’re gonna leave me,” Sheppard said. It was a little halting, but otherwise the most coherent and longest sentence he’d come up with in weeks.

Ronon glanced up at him, gave him a raised eyebrow. “How do you know?”

Leaning forward, Sheppard raised his arms and cupped the back of his head, directly above the thing in his neck. “I can feel it,” he said. “Feels like you already left.”

Ronon stared at him. “Yeah?”

Sheppard’s gaze was dark and intense, unseeing of anything that wasn’t Ronon. He set one hand on the table, palm down, slid it forward.

“Busy,” Ronon said, because both his hands were full and he didn’t really feel like holding hands with Sheppard.

Sheppard’s arm stilled in place, and he settled for pressing it close to where Ronon’s elbows were propped on the table. He didn’t say anything, just stared and kept moving his hand so it followed Ronon’s arms.

“Got a schedule,” Ronon said, after a few minutes. “Gotta keep it. I can’t do the run with you. You lose it, they’re gonna think you’re crazy.”

“I _am_ crazy,” Sheppard retorted, and it was fast enough and obnoxious enough that Ronon paused and looked at him. Sometimes Sheppard said things that weren’t very slave-like. Made Ronon wonder just how much of the man was still in there, fighting the device.

“Yeah,” Ronon agreed. “S’why you can’t come.”

Sheppard said nothing, but his eyes were welling with tears. Ronon sighed. If Sheppard had another tantrum, he’d have to take him and haul him and his grabby hands away from all the blades.

“I’ll tie you,” Ronon said. “You like that.” He reached out and put a hand down on Sheppard’s wrist, pinning it to the table. And Sheppard did like it. Ronon could feel the tension evaporate from his body, see his shoulders slumping instantly.

As usual, touching Sheppard had two effects. It calmed him such that the imminent meltdown vanished. It also focused him enough that he could organize his thoughts and think clearly enough to talk a little.

“It was like being ripped in half,” Sheppard said. “Okay?”

Ronon said nothing. He kept his grip on Sheppard’s wrist.

It was hard for Sheppard to say anything else. He kept opening his mouth, but his sentences died in his throat. Ronon let him try, watchful that the frustration would build into another tantrum.

“It’d be merciful,” Sheppard said, finally. His eyes were down, on Ronon’s gun.

“No,” Ronon said.

Sheppard scowled. It was unusual for him to express any kind of anger or irritation at Ronon, outside of total meltdowns. It was refreshingly normal to see him acting pissed.

“You’re doing this wrong,” Sheppard growled after a moment. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”

“You don’t want me to do it right,” Ronon said, fairly. He didn’t want to do it ‘right’, either.

But neither did he want Sheppard to get any worse. The trip to Oresta was long – seven communities distributed at some distance across one planet. It would take a lot longer than three days and Ronon didn’t want to know what Sheppard would be like left alone all that time.

Taking him along was really the only option. Ronon wouldn’t cancel the run just because he had to babysit. 

~

Sheppard was _thrilled_ to be coming. He also knew before Ronon told him, which continued to be disturbing.

Ronon made him wear real clothes. The man had mostly been in light, flimsy pajamas with old shoes Ronon salvaged if they went outside. It was springtime on Sateda and Sheppard didn’t really care what he wore. If Ronon didn’t make him, there were days where he wouldn’t have put clothes on at all. The pajamas worked and came off easily when Sheppard inevitably hurt himself or got covered in filth and needed both a bath and post-meltdown attention. He generally looked just as insane as he was acting, and that wouldn’t do for offworld.

Dressing Sheppard in Satedan armour was a strange experience. It made Ronon think about the last men to wear it, made his thoughts travel years back. He felt grim, unprepared for how intensely those old emotions resurfaced. Sheppard, as usual, picked up on this, even though Ronon said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Sheppard whispered.

“S’okay,” Ronon said.

The Satedan soldiers had been able to dress themselves, though, and Ronon had to do up all the fasteners because Sheppard didn’t have the manual dexterity or the attention span to do it himself. Underneath the sleeves, Ronon tied two separate belts around Sheppard’s wrists. He didn’t want to march around with an obviously bound man, but Sheppard liked the sensation and Ronon wasn’t naïve enough to believe that the trip would go off flawlessly. If Sheppard had a flailing tantrum, he wanted to be able to shut it down quickly. He also wrapped a short scarf around Sheppard’s neck, concealing the Arachan implant. As he did so, one of the little metal tines wiggled in place. Ronon froze, afraid he’d just driven it deep into Sheppard’s brain. But Sheppard didn’t make a sound or react in any way, so he carefully continued wrapping.

“Just stay behind me and be good,” Ronon said, as they walked towards the Ring.

“I try to be good,” Sheppard said, immediately.

That wasn’t true, because there were plenty of times when Sheppard seemed to have a meltdown purely because it got him attention and physical contact from Ronon.

“I mean it,” Ronon said.

  
Sheppard’s face twisted up. “So do I.”

The plan on Oresta was for Sheppard to say nothing and do nothing. Ronon figured he could carry supplies, but that was all he was counting on. He had a prepared explanation for who Sheppard was and why he was so crazy, since even if Sheppard didn’t showcase his worst behavior, it was still pretty obvious something was wrong with his mind.

“He’s my brother from another mother,” Ronon told the clan leader at the first Orestan villiage. “She drank too much Ulliki ale while he was within her.”

This went over fine. He was even offered a nurse to watch Sheppard while he did his work. It was tempting, but he could already see Sheppard tensely staring at him.

“He doesn’t really like other people,” Ronon said.

All the same, he had to leave Sheppard somewhere while he went and did some of the stupid ritual social meetings surrounding trade. He didn’t think Sheppard could handle that much activity. Ronon didn’t like it himself, but he wasn’t going to flip out about it. So, he left Sheppard with the nurse in their tent. He bound the man’s wrists together and to the center pole, so he couldn’t get away without bringing down the whole thing. He wasn’t sure that was good enough.

“He goes kinda crazy,” he warned the nurse. “Don’t get near him.”

She was a tiny woman, dark like the other Orestans. If Sheppard got loose, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. She looked at Sheppard and frowned.

  
“Can I give him some Keyshi tea?” she asked, face concerned.

Sheppard didn’t want it, but Ronon told him to drink it. It smelled sweet and medicinal and the nurse said it would make his brother happy and quiet. This appeared to mean drugged into a stupor, because when Ronon got back a few hours later, Sheppard was curled up on the floor and drooling. The nurse was gone, and she’d left a pile of tea bags near the door.

Sheppard woke up the following morning and he was _pissed_. He said nothing, of course, but Ronon could see the emotion battling in his face. It took forever to get him dressed because he was twice as clingy as usual and had decided that he wasn’t going to help at all. Ronon left the tent for a few minutes to load up the cargo he’d received, and when he came back all the remaining tea bags had been dumped in the fire and were burning away. Sheppard was sitting next to it, shoulders hunched guiltily. Ronon had never, ever punished him, but every time Sheppard did something he thought would make Ronon angry, that scared posture came out.

“Okay,” Ronon said, sitting down besides Sheppard. He kept his movements smooth and calm, waiting for the fear to ease out. “Tea do anything?” he asked.

Sheppard stared at him, face mostly neutral but something muddled and angry stirring underneath.

“It help?” Ronon asked. “It make it worse?”

Blinking, Sheppard forced out an answer. “Just made me sleep,” he said, finally. “Didn’t do anything else.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not fair,” Sheppard said, almost assertively. He looked at Ronon, waiting for an answer.

“You gotta be good,” Ronon said.

Sheppard crossed his arms over his chest, the tails of the ropes left on his wrists dangling down.

If needed, he could’ve got more tea and kept Sheppard out of it the whole trip. But Ronon tried not to do things that the man obviously hated – and he thought this was actually the man and not the thing in his brain.

Their journey was uneventful for the next few villages. Sheppard behaved, for the most part. Acting normal was hard on him and every time he got the chance to go back to being a total lunatic without anyone seeing, he took it. This made coming back to the lodging every night incredibly shitty, because within seconds of the door shutting Sheppard would completely lose it.  Ronon kept repeating the story he’d made up to each village leader. It worked, although eventually Sheppard figured out what he was saying and had enough dignity left to get pissed about it.

“Are you telling people I have brain damage?” he asked, and it would have sounded more righteous if he wasn’t trying to hug Ronon’s legs while he took his boots off.

“Yeah.”

Sheppard clung harder, and then he started to try to bite Ronon on the knee. It was through his pants so it didn’t really hurt. Ronon put his hand down and pulled Sheppard’s head away, anyway. He sort of patted Sheppard’s hair, something which made him feel like he was stroking a pet. But Sheppard liked it, and Ronon liked it better than getting chewed on.

There was an incident at the seventh village, on the return leg to the Ring. A man came up to Sheppard and tried to speak to him. Sheppard backed away, tripped over his own legs trying to get away. Ronon stepped between them, ready to explain the whole Ulliki ale thing.

“Colonel Sheppard,” the villager said, “Are you alright?”

Sheppard stayed on the ground, staring up at the man. He didn’t say anything and when Ronon stepped closer, his hands shot out and grabbed hold of his leg.

“You’re mistaken,” Ronon said, putting more of his body between them. “You don’t know him. He’s my brother and he’s sick in the head.”

The villager stepped back, probably mostly to get away from Ronon. The expression on his face wasn’t convinced.

“You know him?” Ronon asked Sheppard, hours later. The encounter had left him upset and disoriented, to the extent that they’d spent the entire time hiding out in the inn where they were staying. Sheppard hadn’t trashed the room, mostly because Ronon had tied his arms together and preemptively dumped him in the bathtub. If he wanted to spend the rest of his life in a bathroom with a tied up naked guy, it would actually be a great way to handle Sheppard’s meltdowns.

Sheppard shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He shook his head, water droplets flipping off the ends of his hair. “It’s really hard to remember before.”

“Before what?”

Sheppard blinked at him. “Before,” he said, and then he made a face as if realizing he had no idea what that meant.

Ronon decided to cut the rest of the trip short. Sheppard was in bad shape, now, shaky and unable to follow even basic instructions. They made the delivery at the last village quickly and skipped the celebratory feast that should have followed.

It was good to get back to Sateda. They settled back into the routine, and Sheppard could act as crazy as he wanted without any witnesses.

~

[ ](http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html)


	4. The Year of Jubilee

Unfortunately, Sheppard had the belt crisscrossed over his wrists the day his people showed up to rescue him. There’d been two tantrums during dinner, one because Sheppard burned himself on the pot and one because he wanted to crawl under the table and climb up Ronon for comfort afterwards. The belt averted another incident where the furniture went flying, Ronon ended up covered in his own rations, and Sheppard was too upset to eat but sincerely wanted to chew on Ronon’s fingers.

Sheppard’s people didn’t take it that way.

Ronon didn’t even see them. Sheppard’s behavior had utterly ruined his vigilance to outside threats. He only noticed anything because Sheppard suddenly looked past him, turned completely white, and dropped his drinking glass so hard it rolled off the table and shattered on the floor.

It was only two people. Teyla and the angry round man Ronon vaguely remembered from his short time in the city years ago. They were both armed, but there should have been a squadron of soldiers behind them.

“Sheppard!” The man cried. He wasn’t holding his weapon very attentively, its barrel somewhere to the left of Ronon’s head.

Teyla’s aim was far more centered. Her gun was pointed directly at Ronon, even as her huge eyes were glued to Sheppard. Carefully, Ronon let his arm drop to his side, dangling close to his own gun. Sheppard got up from his seat, knocking his chair over. He darted towards Ronon, trying to put his body between him and the gun sights.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Sheppard chanted. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”

“Colonel?” Teyla questioned.

“Drop your weapons,” Sheppard said. He tried to spread his arms, but the belts were tight enough to stop the movement. Unfortunately, it also drew attention to the fact that he was bound. Suddenly both guns were held much more levelly at Ronon.

Neither one obeyed him.

“What?” asked Teyla’s companion. “How about no?”

Sheppard reached out and tried to fold his trapped arms around Ronon, even though Ronon was still seated.

“Are you hugging him?” the other man asked, incredulously.

“Ronon,” Teyla said, finally. “What is going on here?” There was no softness to her face, not like had been there every time before.

“Long story,” Ronon said, meeting their eyes over Sheppard’s trembling shoulder. His hands were blocked from view, so he took the opportunity to flick the knot in Sheppard’s bonds and set his arms free. This only resulted in Sheppard’s arms swinging out and folding around Ronon’s torso completely.

Teyla stared, her weapon still held level. Her companion was distracted again, his gun off to the side.

“What the fuck?” he said.

~

In their place, Ronon would have shot himself dead. Teyla was probably a skilled enough marksman to have done it without harming Sheppard. But she was too generous to kill him without question. Her companion was less trusting, but he didn’t open fire either. Ronon counted it as another time these people acted in his interest rather than theirs. He didn’t really understand it.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to explain the situation to them. Sheppard did it for him without saying a word.

“John?” said Teyla, cautiously leaning forward.

In response, Sheppard only tightened his grip on Ronon, tension radiating from his every pore. He had his forehead rested against Ronon’s shoulder and he was holding it there as hard as he could.

Ronon shoved his chair backwards, away from the table. He figured, correctly, that Sheppard would earnestly try to scramble up and straddle his lap. It was something he tried to do a lot, but Ronon usually wouldn’t let him. Sheppard was heavy and too big to fit and nine times out of ten he managed to land on one of Ronon’s balls.

But today, it illustrated his point and at the same time allowed Sheppard’s people to move closer and see for themselves. Ronon laid the flat of his palm against Sheppard’s cheek and shoved, trying to force the man’s face away. Sheppard went, probably because he really couldn’t directly resist. But once his head was up, his gaze fastened to Ronon’s face, deliberately ignoring the peering faces of his friends.

“What did you do to him, Conan?” snapped the man. But for all his anger, the gun was slipping flat against his body. Sheppard flinched hard at the words, fingernails digging into Ronon’s skin.

“His name is Ronon, Rodney.” Teyla corrected, and her companion rolled his eyes. She leaned closer, one hand moving off of her gun and reaching out to Sheppard. “John,” she said, softly. “Do you know who we are?”

Sheppard ignored her. He gave no outward sign he even heard her, though Ronon saw his face flicker when she spoke. He continued to avoid looking anywhere near the two.

“He showed up like this,” Ronon said, since Rodney looked about to make another accusation.

“When?” asked Teyla, her voice still soft.

“And when was that?” Rodney demanded, at the same time.

Ronon shrugged, or tried to with both Sheppard’s arms locked around him. It had probably been a few months.

“Colonel Sheppard left Atlantis four months ago,” Teyla said.

“Okay,” Ronon said.

“Four months!” Rodney exploded. “He’s been here four goddamn months and you just decided to keep him?”

Teyla was equally unhappy, but she was a lot quieter about it. “Why did you not contact us?” she asked.

“Brought him back once,” Ronon reminded her. He wasn’t sure if it warranted mentioning that Sheppard had smashed the only direct line of communication.

Teyla’s head tilted to the side as if unwilling to explain why that wasn’t a reasonable response. Ronon knew it wasn’t, but there wasn’t much else to say.

“Wait,” Rodney yelled. Ronon was beginning to realize that was just the volume the man spoke at. “You’re using the ‘Gee, mom, he followed me home’ excuse? Sorry, that’s doesn’t fly, _Medusa_.”

He was really winding up, getting louder and louder, using words that Ronon didn’t fully understand but gathered were insults. It was annoying and Ronon couldn’t do anything about it with Sheppard in his lap. Actually, he probably couldn’t do anything about it at all if he didn’t want Teyla to shoot him, and that was annoying, too.

“What, did you need four months for him to teach you table manners?” Rodney was saying.

It happened too quickly for Ronon to react. He hadn’t thought Sheppard had that much agility or speed in his condition – or hell, the _inclination_ –  so he didn’t expect it. Rodney, evidently, also didn’t expect Sheppard to turn around in Ronon’s lap and launch a punch directly at the man’s face.

It didn’t land solidly. Sheppard had a bad angle and his typical shitty aim. It caught Rodney half on the mouth, half in the neck.  Despite its poor quality and the fact that it couldn’t have been that hard, Rodney stumbled backwards, gagging and gasping, and then losing his footing and dropping to the floor.

For a second, Teyla jerked in place as if she didn’t know where to turn. Then, maybe deciding Ronon wasn’t a threat, she dropped to her knees to follow Rodney.

Ronon didn’t see what happened next, because he had to turn his attention to Sheppard, who socked him in the jaw with an elbow. It wasn’t the same type of violence, wasn’t intentional. It was what he usually did when he wanted to end up being pinned down with full body contact from Ronon. Except he already had that, and was flailing his arms anyway. Ronon found his wrists and grabbed them hard enough to seriously hurt. He pulled Sheppard in towards his face.

“Knock it off,” he ordered.

Sheppard looked at him with dark, cloudy eyes. But he was stilling in place, even as emotion churned in his face.

Rodney was getting back to his feet, screeching something about Ronon telepathically controlling Sheppard. His lip was split and bleeding, his chin flushed red. It wasn’t clear if that was from the punch, though, since his whole face was flaming, too.

Teyla had hold of his arm, and his gun was hanging loose.

“I do not think that is the case, Rodney,” Teyla said.

Rodney did not stop screaming. Ronon tuned it out. It wasn’t important, unless he convinced Teyla to shoot him. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the tension still strumming through Sheppard.

“We need to speak to him,” Teyla said. “Alone.”

Behind her, Rodney was still yelling. She waved her hand sternly at him and the sound finally died. He grabbed his mouth, brow furrowed. “Broken jaw,” Ronon heard him mumble angrily.

“He’s not well,” Ronon said, still not releasing Sheppard’s hands. “He doesn’t like it when I leave.”

And that sentence made Sheppard spasm violently, trying to twist his body and wrap it further around Ronon even though his hands were still trapped.

“We are his friends,” Teyla said, sharply. “Release him, he will not hurt us.”

“Right,” Rodney said, somewhat quietly. “Sheppard would never do that, but this lobotomized cabbage would.”

Keeping hold of Sheppard’s wrists, Ronon shoved the rest of him off, forcing his feet to the floor. Then Ronon stood, took a step, and planted Sheppard back in the chair. “Don’t hit them,” he said.

Sheppard looked up at him, and tears were already swimming in his eyes.

Unsure of what would happen, Ronon let go of the man’s hands. Sheppard didn’t move. His arms sank down, slowly, hands coming to grip his own legs.

Ronon tilted his head towards the door, indicated he’d go stand in the hallway, unless he heard noises suggesting Sheppard was trying to beat the hell out of his friends.

“Thank you,” said Teyla. She sounded harried, but genuine.

“Get lost,” said Rodney, equally genuine.

~

It turned out, Ronon gave the wrong order. He should have commanded Sheppard to stay in the chair. Less than two seconds after Ronon left the room, there was a tremendous crash and Rodney started screaming again. By the time Ronon stepped back in the room, Sheppard was gone. Teyla was delicately picking herself up from the remaining splintered planks of the dining table, and Rodney was jabbering hysterically and gesturing towards the still swinging door on the other side of the room.

Without a word, Ronon took off after him. Sheppard wouldn’t get far. He was too clumsy and disoriented to move fast, and he probably couldn’t run away from Ronon even if he wanted to.

He was wrong.

Sheppard vanished somewhere in the depths of the mansion. Ronon never even caught a glimpse of him. There was some initial evidence of his path – the crash of broken vases and knocked over furniture, and Sheppard stubbed something that left a short blood trail – but then there was silence and stillness and nothing.

Rodney chased after him, followed shortly by Teyla – who was walking funny and making a really grim face.

“Where is he?” Rodney yelled. “Where’d he go?” He was waving his gun around, a weapon Ronon knew fired live ammunition that would puncture and kill rather than stun.

Vaguely curious if the feeling of aggression and annoyance that resurfaced would bring Sheppard from his hiding place to strike out again at Rodney, Ronon reached out and snatched the weapon out of the man’s hand.

“Huh?” Rodney said, suddenly wide eyed and empty-handed. “Hey! You! The – That – _Teyla!_ ”

Behind him, rubbing her hip with one hand and clutching her gun with the other, Teyla understood the score. “You do not want to shoot Colonel Sheppard,” she said.

“Oh,” Rodney said. Then, angrily:  “I know that! Give it back, you mutant!”

Ronon looked down at him, waiting for something.

“I’m not gong to shoot you, either,” Rodney said, finally. And when Ronon handed the gun back, “Not til we have Sheppard back, anyways.”

Ronon smirked and Rodney took a frightened step backwards.

Teyla totally ignored the exchange.

“We need to find him,” she said, hand rubbing her hip.

Sheppard’s flight was maybe the best way the reunion with his people could have occurred.  His friends’ suspicion of Ronon became secondary to locating Sheppard, and probably diminished the idea that Ronon was fully in control here. Rodney still clearly felt that the situation was entirely his fault, and maybe Teyla did, too, but she was a lot quieter about it.

More importantly, Sheppard’s vanishing act meant Rodney produced an armful of Ancestor technology with which to find him, and mostly stopped talking to Ronon. The pile of electronics somehow told him where Sheppard was hiding.

It was Ronon and Teyla who went to actually retrieve him. This prompted a howling protest from Rodney. Ronon had to stop listening, purposefully walking off and waiting just out of earshot in the hallway. He didn’t really need all that technology to find Sheppard. The man definitely wouldn’t leave the building. If Ronon didn’t go find him, he’d half bet Sheppard would come looking for _him_.

But if he was to return Sheppard to his people – and that was the plan and the thought that had been going through his head when Sheppard decided to bolt – it was probably time to act like their opinions mattered. Ronon was a little surprised at the emotion itching in his chest at the thought of giving Sheppard back. It was relief, he figured. The amount of attention and energy and interruption to Ronon’s life involved in having him around was too much. Ronon had never wanted the company of a human pet and he should be glad to get rid of him.

It didn’t take Teyla long to convince Rodney to stay where he was and direct their efforts to find Sheppard. Well, ‘direct’ was her word, but even if she was holding some kind of glowing Ancestor tablet, Ronon didn’t think it or Rodney’s help would really be needed. But it would give him some distance from the incredibly noisy man and opportunity to hear Teyla’s condemnation of him, if she wanted to give it.

“Has he been in this condition the whole time?” Teyla asked, as they walked down the hallway and descended the stairs.  Rodney was talking to her in an earpiece, telling her Sheppard was somewhere in the basement. The question was mild but Ronon knew she would assess his response.

“Mostly,” he said. Then paused, because that wasn’t really true. “Gotten worse,” he admitted. “Never been this bad before.”

Teyla looked at him with hard eyes, but didn’t comment.

  
“We sent a team to Aracha to investigate,” she said. “Covertly,” she added.

“Yeah?”

“None of their slaves were in this condition,” she said. “They retained their mental faculties.”

Ronon waited for her to finish. Sheppard hadn’t been in his right mind from the moment they’d met in the Arachan marketplace.

“They also do not wear the – ” Teyla paused, searching for the word – “ _object_ ,” she settled on, speaking it with total distaste. “In their necks.”

“How do they get it off?” Ronon asked. He didn’t take her words as an accusation. He figured ripping it out would kill Sheppard.

“Their masters remove it upon such time as their obedience is assured,” Teyla said, still making a face.

Teyla went silent, letting her words linger in the air. “You are his master,” she said, finally.

“Is that why you came here?” Ronon asked.

“In part,” Teyla said. “We began to suspect Sheppard would have been compelled to follow you. And we received intelligence from a trading partner describing Sheppard traveling with a stranger.”

“Oresta,” Ronon confirmed.

Teyla was looking at him again, clearly wanting an explanation why he had kept Sheppard’s presence secret. And Ronon found he really didn’t have one, so he said nothing.

Raising a hand to her ear, Teyla pointed to a vent cover in the wall. “Rodney says he is in there.”

“Why didn’t you bring backup?” Ronon asked, wrenching the grate off.

“I thought you would be friendly to me,” Teyla said, standing behind him.  “And less welcoming of a larger force.”

“You’re right,” Ronon said. He could see Sheppard’s legs, curled up in the end of the vent where it turned into a vertical shaft. “I’m gonna go get him.”

Teyla peered curiously forward, but she didn’t move. “I will stay here.”

Pulling Sheppard from the vent wasn’t hard. The man had exhausted himself; his skin was clammy and the pajamas soaked in sweat. He didn’t fight Ronon, couldn’t even summon the strength to do anything but wrap his arms around Ronon’s shoulders when he crawled close enough. The tight quarters of the vent made getting back out slow and cumbersome, but Sheppard held on to him and made no effort to stop their progress.

Ronon shoved Sheppard out first, heard some kind of strange muffled rumble before he emerged after him.

Teyla was no longer alone. She was surrounded by a dozen of Sheppard’s people, all dressed in that black uniform and all armed. And all aiming weapons at Ronon.

Mildly, he looked at Teyla. She was being held back by one of the soldiers. The man wasn’t gripping her arm hard enough to keep her in place if she truly wanted to get away and she wasn’t trying to. 

“Colonel Carter disagreed,” Teyla said, without pretense. “A retrieval team was sent to follow us.”

Ronon nodded. Sheppard took that moment to figure out what had happened and _freak._ He struck out in all directions, and Ronon went to grab him as he had a thousand times before. This time, one of the soldiers produced a Wraith stunner and sent them both into oblivion.

~

Ronon woke up in a holding cell in the City of the Ancestors. His gun was gone, but they’d missed about two dozen of his knives. Nothing else to do, he sat on the floor and waited for someone to notice he was awake. At the very least, he’d probably be fed before anything else happened.

They didn’t feed him first. Soldiers took him to see the blonde woman in charge, who wasn’t nearly as restrained with her anger as Teyla had been. Ronon didn’t feel the need to explain himself to her, but he understood her feelings. It was her job to protect these people, this city. In a few harsh words, she managed to convey that his future depended on if Sheppard’s mind could be restored.

He was taken to the infirmary next. Sheppard was tied to a gurney by his arms, legs, and neck. He was awake, unable to move, and he looked terrified. The lady doctor Ronon had spoken to last time was pacing by his bedside.

“He’s pumped full of sedatives,” he heard her say. “I wanted him to calm down but stay conscious so we’d know the immediate affect of that _thing_ coming off. It didn’t really work.”

Ronon sat down by the gurney, ignoring the presence of his guards. The doctor cautiously moved closer to him. Teyla was standing on the other side of the gurney besides the city leader, her dark eyes on him. He didn’t see him, but Ronon could hear the unmistakable noise he now associated with Rodney coming from somewhere else in the infirmary.

“Alright,” said the doctor. “You should just be able to pull it off. That’s how it works.” She nodded with a confidence he didn’t think she felt. “But do it slowly.”

First, Ronon undid the neck restraint pinning Sheppard’s head down. He put one hand heavily on the man’s gowned shoulder, feeling the shuddering response that hopefully meant he was providing some comfort. With the other, Ronon gently turned Sheppard’s head away. The ugly twisted metal came into view as Sheppard’s cheek dropped to the pillow. It was possible, he knew, that this would kill the man. But Sheppard had twice requested death rather than live like this, and that thought filled Ronon’s mind as he took hold of the device and steadily began to pull.

The thing came out immediately, without a sound. It seemed to shrink in Ronon’s hand, its spines retracting from Sheppard’s skin and vanishing into itself. It took maybe two seconds until it was completely out.

There was only silence for a moment. Then, Sheppard turned his head toward Ronon. He gasped twice then his eyes fluttered up and closed.

~

Sheppard slept for three days. Ronon spent that time confined in the holding cell again. Now, he spent most of that time analyzing the cell for security weaknesses and formulating various attack plans to overpower the guards. He would have to leave the city, regardless of if Sheppard woke up intact, or never woke up at all.

Teyla visited each day, usually to bring a meal and inform him that Sheppard’s condition had not changed.

“You gonna kill me if he dies?” Ronon asked on the third day, blunt because he was ready to be done with this.

“No,” Teyla said immediately.

He believed her, but she wouldn’t say what fate her Colonel Carter intended if Sheppard was lost to them. If not death, maybe life imprisonment. Ronon didn’t intend to remain long enough to serve anything more than another few days.

On the morning of the fourth day, Sheppard woke up. Teyla came briefly to tell Ronon, but she didn’t disclose if he was in his right mind or not. She didn’t come back that evening. The outcome, Ronon assumed, wasn’t good. The soldiers who brought him his meals said nothing, either. They were probably too well trained to try to get their own vengeance, anyway, or maybe they hadn’t liked Sheppard. He decided to delay his departure by one more night, if only so he would know if Sheppard still lived.

The fifth day, Ronon got a new visitor. He was in the process of aiming his sharpest knife at the wires of the security camera watching him, and when the door opened he had to covertly drop the blade down his sleeve without stabbing himself. Without looking backwards, he knew the footsteps were too heavy to be Teyla and the soldiers who brought him meals always said things like “Don’t move!” after they entered.

Ronon turned around, arm falling to his side and the blade dropping down his forearm back into its concealed sheath within his clothes.

Sheppard was standing in the doorway.  

He looked so different Ronon almost identified him as just another soldier in a black uniform. But it was Sheppard, standing there stiffly with his hands shoved in his pockets. He looked, probably, like he was supposed to. But it had been years since Ronon had seen him healthy, so it was just strange. His posture was strong, his face forcefully blank of expression. And he was staring at Ronon like it was him that was different.

“Hey,” Ronon said.

Sheppard let out a little breath. “Hey,” he said. Then, “Want to take a walk?”

The guards outside Ronon’s door didn’t follow them as they exited. Ronon took it to mean that Sheppard was well.

They walked in silence to an outer pier, mostly because Sheppard said nothing and Ronon was waiting for him to speak.

“You’re okay?” Ronon said, finally, because Sheppard didn’t speak first.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, slowly. “I woke up, realized that thing was outta me, feel like a brand new man.”

“You remember?” Ronon asked. He wasn’t sure what he expected to hear. Sometimes Sheppard had very obviously been aware, other times not at all. And if Sheppard remembered nothing, it wouldn’t absolve Ronon anyway.

“In living color,” Sheppard said, without hesitation.

“Oh,” Ronon said.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. He stopped walking, then, turning to lean again the rail overlooking the water.

Ronon halted, too, stepping to stand beside him. He noted the space between their bodies, how Sheppard didn’t immediately try to sidle up to Ronon.

“I should have returned you to your people,” he said, eyes on the blue, frothing water below. “I’m sorry.”

“Huh,” Sheppard said. “Didn’t really expect you to say that.”

Ronon shrugged. Sheppard was looking down at the water, too, in no great hurry to make eye contact, either.

“It’s true.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed. But he didn’t sound upset, just kind of calm. “Though, Colonel Carter told me they didn’t figure out the secret to –” he waved a hand up by his neck “ – until last week. All that would have been different is that you probably would have spent the last few months in that holding cell.”

Now, Ronon looked at him.

  
“Okay,” Sheppard amended. “You would have spent until you managed to escape the holding cell.”

Ronon nodded.

“And I would have had some really unfun time in the infirmary with a lot more people watching me act like an insane clingy vegetable.” He cleared his throat, the idea clearly distasteful. “So, even if you didn’t do it on purpose, I’m grateful you spared me that.”

“Okay,” Ronon said. It sounded like he was being forgiven. He didn’t know why, but he would take it.

“Let’s never speak of it again,” Sheppard said, totally serious. “As far as I’m concerned, it never happened."

Ronon looked at him. “Okay.”

“Good. Anyways,” Sheppard said. “I convinced Colonel Carter that you didn’t do anything that we should keep you for – not that we could even if you had –  and that I was just crazy not compromised into telling you the most effective way to invade Atlantis, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention to her that I did.”

“No problem,” Ronon said.

“Good,” Sheppard said. He didn’t say anything else for a few minutes, silently watching the waves crash below. “I’m kind of surprised you stuck around,” he said, then.

“Was gonna leave today,” Ronon said, honestly. “Wanted to hear if you survived.”

Sheppard gave a tiny, amused smile. “Gonna miss me?”

And that was an unfair and dumb question, so Ronon didn’t answer it.

“Sorry,” Sheppard said, then. “But I’m serious. Outside of that sick thing in my head, you’d make a powerful ally for this city.”

“I’m one guy,” Ronon reminded him, as if Sheppard hadn’t lived on Ronon’s empty planet for the past few months.

“One guy single handedly waging war against the Wraith across Pegasus,” Sheppard said. “I was there, remember?” Ronon didn’t reply, wondering what Sheppard was trying to get at. “You could benefit from some friends, too. I’m not offering you to join this city,” Sheppard continued, “because you said no last time and because I told Colonel Carter I wanted you gone so I wouldn’t have to think about the last few months. Not entirely untrue. I’m not in a hurry to give her the idea that I still want to snuggle with you.”

He stepped away from the railing, body turning back towards the city. Ronon followed and together they walked a path Ronon realized would probably bring them to the city’s Ring.

“So maybe not tomorrow,” Sheppard said, as they walked. “But with Atlantis’ technology and your Wraith intel, we could help each other out.”

That wasn’t a terrible idea. These people hadn’t yet been culled, they must have been doing something right.

“Your people gonna be okay with that?” Ronon asked, remembering the last time Sheppard had wanted him to stay in the city.

“Eventually,” Sheppard said, sounding confident. “Carter’s military so she knows good strategy and she’ll like what you’ve done with a one man army. Rodney’s afraid of you, but he’ll get over it. And I promise he’s not always that annoying."

“You’re the one that hit him,” Ronon said.

“Because you wanted to,” Sheppard said, easily. “Anyway, Teyla’s always liked you. And we don’t clear all our offworld allies with the IOA, they don’t even have to know.”

“Sure this isn’t cause of that thing?” Ronon asked, as they enter the room where the Ring stood. “It still making you do stuff?”

Colonel Carter, Teyla, and Rodney were standing at the base of the Ring, clearly waiting for them. From the expression on the blonde’s face, she probably shared that suspicion. Rodney definitely had a similar opinion.

“That thing worked both ways,” Sheppard said. “I know why you wouldn’t get rid of me.”

The Ring was dialing, the chevrons each lighting up in turn with Sateda’s address.

“Let’s be friends,” Sheppard said, shoving into Ronon’s hands another radio/dialing device like the one he’d smashed all those months ago. “Less happy naked fun time in the bathtub, more Wraith-killing this time around.”

“Okay.” Ronon said. He paused. “Give me back my gun.”

“Rodney,” Sheppard said.

Slowly, his face twisted in a pout, Rodney stepped forward and produced Ronon’s gun from behind his back. “Oh, right, this old thing.” But he was even slower to hand it over, until Ronon snatched it from his hand. “Since Sheppard’s making us be friends,” Rodney said, mildly, “can I take that apart and see how it works?”

“No,” Ronon said, and holstered it.

“Friends _share_ ,” Rodney said, and Ronon totally didn’t believe Sheppard that the man wasn’t always this annoying.

“In time,” Teyla said, stepping forward as well. “Safe journey, Ronon. I hope we will see you frequently on better terms.”

“Try not to kidnap anyone else,” muttered Rodney.

“We’ll contact you in a few months when the dust has settled,” Carter said.

“When she believes I don’t secretly want to obey you anymore,” Sheppard translated, with an amount of false cheer.

“Yeah,” Carter said, casually. “I’m not convinced of that yet, but as a show of good faith, we’ve sent you some supplies through to Sateda.”

“Food,” said Sheppard.

“Kinda like a ransom,” Rodney said, and Teyla might have pinched him in the side, because he squeaked and flinched in place.

The Ring lit up, the wormhole exploding down the ramp. Ronon looked toward it, took a step. He was unsure what to say. Instead of punishment, they were giving him freedom. He’d earned their hostility, but they were offering friendship. These people were weird.

“Friends,” he said, gruffly, to Sheppard, and knocked his shoulder against the man as he walked by. He found Teyla’s eyes. “See you around,” he said, and then he stepped through the Ring.

Sateda opened before him, ruins stretching out endlessly as always. And though he was once again the only living human on its surface, he walked towards his home feeling oddly less alone.

 

~

The End

~Please feed the author~

comment at [lj](http://vain-glorious.livejournal.com/14744.html?mode=reply#add_comment) or [dw](http://vain-glorious.dreamwidth.org/14758.html?mode=reply) if preferred

 


End file.
